


That Time Hirono Became The Class Meme

by kawada_s



Series: Main Universe [2]
Category: Battle Royale - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 10:10:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8840515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kawada_s/pseuds/kawada_s
Summary: After accompanying Yoshimi, Sho and Hiroshi to the mall, Hirono is peer pressured into trying on an awful dress. The photograph that comes out of this event is turned into the class meme, and it seems like everyone else in Class 3-B wants to be in on it.





	

That Time Hirono Became The Class Meme

One of the weirdest things that had happened so far during the ninth grade school year was Yoshimi Yahagi and Sho Tsukioka becoming friends. It seemed to come out of nowhere. Their friends and Class 3-B as a whole were still trying to wrap their heads around it, but despite the stares they got and the comments their friends often made, they still hung out often. They had bigger things to care about that what their classmates thought of their newfound friendship.

Like cute boys, for instance. The two sat together in the mall food court, sipping smoothies, their eyes fixed on the people around them. For the past fifteen minutes, Yoshimi had been insisting that the guy that had just left the table beside theirs had been extremely cute, while Sho was trying to tell her he definitely wasn’t worth their time. His fashion sense was absolutely atrocious. The guy that had been ahead of them in the line at the smoothie shop, on the other hand…

Hirono Shimizu groaned and began to slurp her smoothie obnoxiously, hoping to piss the two off. They both continued to talk, in a boy-crazy haze that made her roll her eyes for what felt like millionth time today. Why had she agreed to come along again? Oh, right – because she had nothing else to do this afternoon. When Mitsuko had repeatedly dodged her questions about what she was doing after school, she had no other choice but to accept Yoshimi’s invitation to come along with them. Even though she and Sho, especially together, were annoying as hell, it was better than going right home after school.

She looked over at Hiroshi Kuronaga sitting beside her, looking as bored as she was. She wasn’t sure why he had come. It definitely wasn’t because he was good company. He had barely said a word since they’d gotten to the mall. Then again, when Hirono thought about it, he was definitely the quietest member of the Kiriyama family. She had only really heard him speak when he was torturing Yoshio Akamatsu in the hallways before class started. Sometimes, people even forgot about him, which didn’t amuse him in the slightest.

Yoshimi and Sho’s voices were hurting Hirono’s ears. She had to drown them out. Her eyes scanned the food court and she tried to look for a conversation starter. When she found it, she hated herself for stooping to Yoshimi and Sho’s level, but it was better than sitting there while her ears bled.

“That girl over there is kinda hot,” Hirono said, giving Hiroshi a discreet nudge. He looked up from his smoothie and looked over in the direction he was nudged in, seeing a girl standing in line at the smoothie shop not too far away. She looked kind of similar to their classmate Haruka Tanizawa, but he decided that it was just a mere coincidence.

“Guess so, if that’s what you’re into,” Hiroshi said with a shrug. He looked over at a girl a few tables down, a red beanie hiding some of her messy black hair, her clothes rumpled and a skateboard tucked under one arm. “She’s more my type, if we’re picking someone in the general area.”

“Skater girl, huh?” Hirono said. Her eye was still on the girl who resembled Haruka. She watched as she paid for her smoothie and walked out of sight, feeling slight disappointment. She tried to shrug it off.

“Yeah,” Hiroshi said, taking another sip of his smoothie as Yoshimi let out a loud giggle that made both him and Hirono cringe. He’d only come along because Kazuo had requested to be left alone that afternoon, and no one else but Sho had plans. Now, he was wishing he just went home.

After that, Hirono and Hiroshi’s conversation completely stopped. She sighed and laid her head on the table, waiting for Yoshimi and Sho to finally be done, their smoothies forgotten once they had begun chatting about boys. If they were just going to talk about stupid shit that only interested the two of them, why had they bothered inviting her and Hiroshi?

Half an hour passed by. Hirono couldn’t take it anymore. She reached her fingers over, and poked Yoshimi with her sharpest nail. Yoshimi pulled her arm away, her brow furrowing, but Hirono didn’t look sorry at all. She was just glad she had finally gotten her attention.

“Yeah, Hirono?” Yoshimi mumbled, lightly twirling the straw around in her smoothie.

“Are we gonna do anything else, or what?” Hirono snapped. For a moment, Yoshimi looked surprised, but she recovered quickly. She was used to Hirono getting snappy, but usually it was directed at Mitsuko instead of her. Finally, she realised her companions were bored.

“Oh,” Yoshimi mumbled, taking a few minutes to think. Impatiently, Hirono tapped her fingers on the cold plastic table. “I know! We could go shopping! You need some new clothes, Hirono.”

Hirono gave her a glare, then looked down at what she was wearing. She couldn’t see any problem with her leather jacket, black and red skirt, and heavy boots – they were a part of her. She had better fashion sense than both Mitsuko and Yoshimi, one of them dressing like an utter skank and the other dressing in colours and patterns that were at home in a third grade classroom.

“It would be fun to give Shimizu a makeover,” Sho said. The gleam of amusement in his eyes and the sly smile forming on his lips made Hirono want to punch him.

“Fuck no,” Hirono snapped, but no one listened. Yoshimi and Sho had already gotten up, and so had Hiroshi. “Seriously, Kuronaga? You’re going along with this shit?”

“It would be entertaining,” Hiroshi smirked. When Hirono shot him a look of death, he quickly looked away. He shoved his hands in his pockets and walked after Yoshimi and Sho, who were about to leave the food court.

Hirono stayed seated, and a grunt of frustration left her as she watched the group disappear from sight. For a minute, she thought about going home, but then went to catch up with them. They wouldn’t be able to do anything to her. She’d like to see them _try_ to get her into some shitty dress.

 

It seemed that once Yoshimi and Sho discovered that their favourite clothing store was having a sale, Hirono’s proposed makeover was forgotten. She and Hiroshi were now sitting beside one another on hard plastic chair outside the entrances to the male and female changing rooms, while Sho and Yoshimi tried on clothes and spent way too much money. After Sho had come out in some sparkly display that had made Hiroshi want to vomit, he looked over at Hirono.

“Why are our friends like this?” Hiroshi asked as Sho disappeared into the changing rooms again.

“Who knows,” Hirono frowned. She looked down at her stolen watch. They’d been inside the clothing store for about two hours now, and she decided that share that disbelief with Hiroshi. “Who can still find clothing interesting after two fucking hours?”

“No idea,” Hiroshi looked at her, then out of nowhere, grabbed his wallet, and stood up. “I’m gonna go get food to make this shit bearable. Want anything?”

“Fuck yes,” Hirono muttered, and watched Hiroshi leave. She just hoped that he would come back. If he didn’t, she would give him hell tomorrow.

She leaned back in her chair, waiting impatiently for Hiroshi to return. Occasionally, Yoshimi would come out, ask Hirono her opinion on an outfit, and she would tell her that it was one of the ugliest things she had ever seen. Yoshimi would give her a look of disappointment and go back into the change room to try on something else, and the cycle would begin again. Yoshimi remained optimistic. Hirono had to like _something_ she tried on eventually…

Hiroshi returned a little while later, after Hirono had told Yoshimi her outfit was terrible for the seventh time. He sat beside her again and dumped a box filled with greasy food on her lap, and she quickly began to eat. While absolutely awful for you, it would get her through the afternoon. She tried to ignore the fact that the sentence could be applied to a lot of things in her life.

“What the hell are you two eating?” Sho walked over to the two of them in disgust. “How can you put that into your bodies?!”

“We were bored,” Hiroshi simply said, and continued to eat. Sho sighed and shook his head, walking back inside the changing rooms.

As Hirono finished eating, Yoshimi came out of the changing rooms for what felt like the thousandth time, holding up two skirts.

“So, you guys, which one do you think looked better, the stripes or the polka dots?” Yoshimi asked the two. She had seemingly forgotten that Hiroshi hadn’t even been in the store when she had tried one of them on.

“They’re both ugly,” Hirono and Hiroshi said in unison. Upon realising this, they laughed and high fived one another.

Yoshimi frowned, and went to put the skirts back on the rack. When she did, something caught her eye that made her gasp. She rifled through the rack for the right size, and then held it up as if she had just struck gold.

“Hirono! I found something for you!” Yoshimi exclaimed proudly. “Come here!” Hirono stood and began to walk towards her, just so she could insult whatever she had picked.

“That is absolutely hideous, Yoshimi,” Hirono said as soon as she laid eyes on the garment. It was a tight-fitting sparkly purple and pink dress, that to Hirono looked like a slightly grown-up version of what you could find in a child’s dress up box, and definitely not worth the ridiculous amount on the price tag. How the hell could Yoshimi think it suited her?

“C’mon, Hirono! You’d look great in it!” Yoshimi insisted. “Try it on.”

“Yeah, Shimizu,” Sho said from behind Yoshimi, “try it on.”

“No way,” Hirono said coldly. “Now get out of my way.” She tried to move, but Yoshimi and Sho blocked her from going anywhere. Sighing, she gave them both a death stare. It did absolutely nothing.

“Try on the dress, Shimizu,” Hiroshi said, getting up from the chair. “Try on the dress, try on the dress, try on the dress….”

The three of them surrounded Hirono, beginning to chant those four words. Some of the other shoppers started to join in. While they probably should have kicked them out for causing a ruckus, even some of the _employees_ began to join in with the chanting. After several minutes, Hirono couldn’t take it anymore, and after giving them a glare that could probably even scare Mitsuko, cleared her throat.

“Fine. I’ll do it, if it means everyone will leave me the fuck alone,” Hirono growled, snatching the awful dress from Yoshimi’s hands. Yoshimi let out an excited squeal that made her ears ache, and then she disappeared into the change room.

Hirono spent about five minutes looking for some sort of escape from the changing room, but ended up resigning herself to the fact that she would have to try on the damn dress. She got it on as quickly as possible, having already figured out the plan. She’d open the door for five seconds, give Yoshimi her stupid satisfaction, then take it off as fast as possible, hoping that no one would ever bring it up again.

That was not what ended up happening.

When she opened the door, three phones were shoved in Hirono’s face. This event was huge, and Yoshimi, Sho and Hiroshi needed photos of it. Before they could take any more, Hirono quickly shut the door.

“You looked great, Hirono!” Yoshimi called out. “You should totally buy it!”

“Fuck you, Yoshimi,” Hirono snapped. Before she left the change room, back in the clothes that actually made her feel like herself, she balled up the dress and threw it to the ground. The employees could find it in there later. She was never going to touch that again.

With a smile, Yoshimi gave Hirono back her bag. Hirono frowned at the constant pinging noise coming from her phone. Barely anyone messaged her, except for Yoshimi and Mitsuko, and there was no way Mitsuko would ever send that many messages in a row. With a frown, she fished her phone out of her bag.

The messages were coming from the class group chat. The only reason why she was in something so lame was occasionally, there was a good fight in the group chat or someone took a photo of the answers to the homework. Hirono opened it up to see what the big fuss was, scrolling up slightly, to see a photo of her in the dress, sent by Sho. Her expression of pure horror in the photograph had clearly amused her classmates.

She began to look at the messages following the pictures.

 **Mitsuko Souma:** oh my fucking god

 **Mitsuko Souma:** I think I need therapy after seeing that

 **Ryuhei Sasagawa:** HAHAHA

 **Kazushi Niida:** Shimizu looks like a bit of a babe in that dress ;)

 **Kazuo Kiriyama:** This photograph is incredibly unflattering, and the dress is definitely not your style, Shimizu.

 **Yukie Utsumi:** the dress is really pretty!

_Shinji Mimura has sent a photo._

Hirono opened the photo. It was a close-up of her face in the photograph, with the caption, ‘when you forget to study for the test.’

 **Yuka Nakagawa:** lol

 **Mitsuko Souma:** Trust Mimura to make it into a meme.

_Sakura Ogawa has sent a photo._

It was the close-up photo of Hirono’s face again. This time, the caption was, ‘when you forget you and your girlfriend’s two year anniversary.’

 **Kazuhiko Yamamoto:** I thought you said I made it up to you…

 **Sakura Ogawa:** TWO YEARS.

 **Yukie Utsumi:** Take this to private message, you guys!

_Mitsuko Souma has sent a photo._

Hirono opened it, gripping her phone tightly. She always threw it to the floor when she saw the close-up of her face again. This time, the caption was, ‘when you get home from the party and remember you accidentally left your underwear in someone’s bathtub.’

 **Haruka Tanizawa:** wait what

 **Mitsuko Souma:** it’s a great story. I should tell you sometime.

 **Kazushi Niida:** sounds hot

 **Takako Chigusa:** why are you even here

_Kazushi Niida has been removed from the group._

Hirono’s face began to burn. Why had Haruka just have to be the first person to reply?

 **Hirono Shimizu:** YOU PROMISED YOU WOULDN’T TELL ANYONE, MOTHERFUCKING SLUT

 **Yukie Utsumi:** language

 **Mitsuko Souma:** I saw an opportunity that I had to take

 **Hirono Shimizu:** YOU GUYS ARE ALL ASSHOLES

_Shinji Mimura has sent a photo._

Hirono, now furious, reluctantly opened the photo. It was another close up of her face, with the caption, ‘when you realise you’re going to become the class meme.’

_Hirono Shimizu has left the group._

_Yukie Utsumi has added you to a group chat!_

_Hirono Shimizu has left the group._

_Yukie Utsumi has added you to a group chat!_

_Hirono Shimizu has left the group._

_Yukie Utsumi has added you to a group chat!_

Hirono gave up.

 

Shinji had been right, as Hirono did in fact become the class meme. She had long ago muted the group chat, as she had become incredibly sick of seeing the close-up of her face that everyone seemed to love so much. She had heard a rumour that Mitsuko had started to sell merchandise on the sly to make some fast cash, and judging by the pins some people were wearing on their blazers with her shocked face on it and t-shirts people wore under their uniforms with her face on it as well, it was true. So far, Hirono hadn’t been able to stop her.

She was just waiting for someone else to do something really dumb so she could be forgotten about. Even _Megumi_ laughed when she saw her now!

“I’ll be back,” Hirono muttered to Mitsuko and Yoshimi at lunch, hearing laughter around them, no doubt about the class meme. They both nodded, not looking up from their phones. She peered over to see the two laughing about Hirono memes that had been posted by Shinji and Yutaka the night before in the group chat.

She could clearly hear Shinji and Yutaka arguing over whose meme had been better, and Yukie and her friends were having a debate over whether Hirono’s dress was actually nice or not. Yukie was adamant that it was pretty, but Satomi was telling her she was too kind and that it was plain awful – anyone could see that, or so she thought. Yuka was playing the peacekeeper. She only had an opinion on the memes – they were brilliant.

Hirono rolled her eyes, and thought about going over there and ending the debate. When she heard Haruka say that the dress was kind of nice, just needed to be a different colour and have the sparkles toned down a little, she decided to just leave the room instead.

A couple of students from other classes stared at her as she walked down the hallway – the meme had been plastered over the school for over a week now, so lots of people now recognised her. Only Class 3-B understood why it was so funny, though. Most people in Class 3-A thought they were all on some kind of drugs for finding it so hilarious. No one had cared what they thought, and continued to make even more memes.

Hirono gave the people who were staring a glare and they quickly ran off. She sighed in relief, grateful that she at least still had credibility outside of her class. She decided to head to the bathroom, as white it wasn’t the most desirable option, it just had to be a meme-less environment.

She was wrong.

She opened the door to the ladies’ toilets, and photographs of the meme were everywhere. On the walls, on the mirrors, on the soap dispenser, even inside the cubicles. At first, Hirono began to rip them up and throw them into the garbage, but eventually stopped once she realised there were too many left to get rid of. Instead, she sighed, and decided to look for somewhere else where she could find peace.

A door at the end of the corridor caught Hirono’s eye. The art room – why hadn’t she thought of that before? No one went into the art room at lunch!

Hirono pushed the door of the art room open, and smiled slightly. The room was quiet, and there were no photographs of memes anywhere. Finally, peace.

She dropped her bag onto a desk and then turned around. That was when she saw it.

Kazuo Kiriyama sat on a stool in front of a canvas. He was about halfway through painting the photograph of Hirono in the dress, and was so focused on it that he hadn’t even heard her come in.

Hirono bit her lip to stop herself from shouting. Even _Kiriyama_ had something to do with the meme! She quickly left the room before Kazuo could figure out she was there.

In that moment, she knew what she would do next time someone became the class meme. She was going to pull out all the stops. They’d go utterly insane by the time she was finished.

All she had to do now was wait.


End file.
